Cyberspace Communications

Cyberspace Communications

Cyberspace Communications is a non-profit organization located in Ann Arbor, Michigan that promotes free speech through its anonymous access Unix system, Grex. The organization gained wide attention as the lead plaintiff in a successful suit to invalidate Michigan Public Act 33 of 1999 (The Child Online Protection Act).

History

Cyberspace Communications was formed to govern the public access Unix system Grex. Grex was based on M-Net, another public access Unix system located in Ann Arbor, currently operated by Arbornet. Based on collective management and group ownership, the system blossomed very quickly into community with hundreds of users.

Cyberspace Communications v. Engler

In the summer of 1999, Grex became party to a lawsuit seeking to nullify a Michigan law that would have jeopardized Grex's anonymous access and the privacy of its users. In ruling, the court found that Michigan's Public Law 33 violated the commerce clause as well as the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

This decision would later on be widely cited in other cases litigating decency laws.

Organization & Governance

Board of Directors

Cyberspace Communications is governed by a Board of Directors made up of members who are elected by the membership to serve terms of two years, with a two (consecutive) term limit.

Current members serving on the Board of Directors

President

Vacant

Term Expires:

Secretary

Vacant

Term Expires:

Treasurer

Mark Conger

Term Expires: Dec 2009

Denise Anderson

Term Expires: Dec 2009

Dan Cross

Term Expires: Dec 2008

Chuck Martin

Term Expires: Dec 2009

Colleen McGee

Term Expires: Dec 2008

Steve Andre'

Term Expires: Dec 2009

Members

Cyberspace Communications is a membership organization whose funding comes from dues paid by members. Members are afforded voting rights when it comes to policy decisions, and can run for the Board of Directors. Members also receive a higher level of access to Grex, the organization's public access Unix system.

Grex

Grex is the public access Unix system that is operated by Cyberspace Communications.

Services

Grex's primary service is an electronic conferencing system. Accessible via the world wide web, or through an internal interface, it provides a forum for members to discuss a wide range of issues.Grex also provides limited Internet services, such as e-mail, usenet, text browsing of the world wide web, and text-only website hosting.

Technical Details

Until recently, Grex operated on hardware made by Sun Microsystems. The main system was a Sun SPARCserver 4/670MP. In December 2004, the system was moved to a modern x86 system. The operating system was also changed at this time, from SunOS to OpenBSD.

Member Governance in Action: A Censorship Issue

Member involvement in policy-making has been a core principle of Grex
from the beginning. An incident from 2004 provides an illustration of
the dynamics of Grex policy-making, and in particular the role of
member proposals.

Historically, Grex culture has been anti-censorship: users are assumed
to be responsible for what they post in bbs forums, with postings
removed only if deemed to be illegal (e.g. credit card numbers) or for
content-neutral reasons (e.g. the need to free disk space). Users
have always been allowed to delete their own posts. However, although
the prevailing culture was anti-censorship, no written policies were
in place prior to 2004 regarding what forum moderators or others with
administrative powers may do regarding deletion of posts made by
people other than themselves.

In early 2004, considerable controversy arose when Valerie Mates, a Grex staff member,
invoked root privileges to delete an entire thread that she had
initiated but contained posts by many other users. This action
sparked intense
debate in the
Coop Conference,
the Grex forum devoted
to governance issues. (Note: If certain postings are indicated as
"erased" in the pages linked to above, it is because they were deleted
by the users who posted them.)
While the debate was in progress, another user
requested of this staff member that several long threads that he had
initiated also be deleted. Despite the fact that the appropriateness
of such deletion was still under active discussion, the staff member
performed the requested deletions, resigned from the staff, and left
the Grex community.

At this point, the debate intensified. The Grex bylaws allow members
to propose policy resolutions, which are then decided by member vote.
To resolve the censorship controversy, a member
proposed
that the
censorship be undone by restoring the deleted items from tape backup,
with users being given the opportunity to delete their own postings
from those items before making the items publicly accessible. This
proposal was
defeated
Unwilling to accept this outcome, the member
who proposed it immediately re-proposed essentially the same motion,
forcing another vote, which again went against the proposal. The
proposal was voted on and defeated a third time as well.

This incident prompted two changes to Grex policy,
one to close a
loophole in the bylaws that allowed immediate re-votes on an issue
already decided, and
another to
disallow deletion of user posts by administrators
except under narrowly defined circumstances.
Both of these measures were adopted democratically via member vote.

Several other policy issues on Grex have been settled by member vote, as
can be seen by consulting the
log of member proposals